Comparing Cannabis Website Platforms: WordPress, Squarespace, Magento, and others

In this day and age, it is a must for any business to have a website. Why? Well, simply put, our modern world is technologically advanced. Thus, having a well-run website boosts your credibility. In this article, we will compare some of the best platforms for your cannabis website. The choice you make for your cannabis website platform mostly depends on your needs. So, we will start with the platform that is most suitable for beginners and then work our way up from there.

Squarespace, Wix and Weebly

If you are a beginner with little experience in starting up a website, these are the affordable options for you. What makes these cannabis website platforms ideal is that they do not cost much to get started, and you won’t need a web developer to help you either. Some other advantages of these platforms include:

– Templates that you can choose from are visually appealing and a little bit customizable
– Costs less than other platforms

What are the differences?

Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons for using each as your cannabis website platform.

Squarespace:

Pros – Beautiful designer templates, templates are mobile responsive, some styling options to customize your design

Cons – Designs may look a bit different on a mobile device, over customizability may be overwhelming, only allows one payment processor (Stripe), which in most cases doesn’t allow CBD.

Wix:

Pros – professional-looking templates, most innovative drag and drop website builder, support and help is available

Cons – Difficulty switching templates, the free plan shows visible advertising, not equipped for complex e-commerce needs

Weebly:

Pros – User-friendly drag and drop website builder, changing templates is easier, pre-design page layouts

Cons – Limited template customizability, less innovative than others, blog features need improving

If you choose one of these for your cannabis website platform, it is recommended that you at least pay for a plan that allows you to use your own domain name. These are likely to cost you less than $20 per month. It is important to use your own domain name since it will help you to build domain authority – an important factor for SEO rankings and visibility.

One of the downsides to using these platforms, however, is their lack of customizability compared to other platforms such as WordPress. This means that your cannabis website may end up looking similar to other websites on that platform. This prevents your website from standing out a little more. Let’s take a look at some cannabis website platform options that will allow more customizability.

WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla

These three platforms are free and are open-source. Additionally, they offer templates and plugins for customizability. The difference compared to Squarespace, Wix and Weebly, however, is that you will require a website host. These platforms are good for small and medium-sized businesses. Although, unlike Squarespace, Wix and Weebly, you will need to have the financial capacity to hire a developer, particularly if your cannabis website will have a dispensary option.

What are the differences?

Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons for using each as your cannabis website platform.

WordPress:

Pros – Is a popular and preferred platform, especially for cannabis websites, availability of themes and extensions, small and easy to use, support is widely available, also allows to create custom WP templates for Cannabis Websites to fit your specific needs

Cons – Requires at least a minimum of tech support and maintenance and a hosting provider

Joomla:

Pros – Designed for larger websites, when scaling your website, you won’t struggle with performance issues

Cons – Fewer available themes and plugins, less SEO functionality, is not easy to use and requires a developer to work on it

Drupal:

Pros – Provides complete freedom, the website content and structure are fully customizable and tends to load faster out of the box

Cons – Difficult to use compared to both Joomla and WordPress, not as many extensions and themes, and using it for a smaller website comes with a lot of extra work, which may not be the case if you choose Joomla or WordPress instead

Magento:

If your cannabis website platform needs to sell many items or offer many options such as multi-state marijuana lifestyle brands or cannabis distribution websites, then this might the platform for you. Large companies like Ford, Coca-Cola, and Land Rover built their websites on Magento. Let’s look at some pros and cons.

Pros – Handles SEO issues well, not a cheap or easy option for your cannabis website platform, great for products that offer variation

Cons – It is a complex platform requiring a professional developer, it is more complicated to manage compared to the other platforms we have discussed, and themes and extensions are quite costly.

There is one thing that makes this platform stand out from most of others. Magento and WordPress allow you to display different versions of your website to meet the needs of users in different locations or who speak different languages. This cannabis website platform is perfect if you plan to sell your cannabis products in more than one country.

No cannabis website platform is perfect

There is much to consider when deciding on which platform to use for your cannabis website. Hopefully, this article gives you a head start in choosing the platform that suits your cannabis website needs best. Let’s quickly recap. If you have a small business and want to start off basic, a platform like Squarespace, Wix, or Weebly is for you.

You may have to change to another platform as your business grows, though. If your cannabis business is moderately established and you can afford to spend a little more on your cannabis website platform, then WordPress is a good option. If you have a very large cannabis business, with variation in your products and you have a large budget, then a platform like Magento is for you. Remember, if you get stuck along the way, you can always reach out to us to help you. At Digital Octane, we work with CBD Website platforms on a daily basis.